Friday, December 12, 2008

Santa, I want to bust unions for Christmas!

The Republicans in the Senate have given themselves a big ol' Christmas gift - it's very possible the busted the last of the big manufacturing unions last night when the killed the auto bailout bill.

Senator after Senator bemoaned the fact the auto industry was "shackled" to UAW contracts, and spitting propaganda about auto workers making $74/hour in Detroit. None of it is true, but that didn't stop them from saying it.

From the beginning, this was never about the money and accountability. They gave more than $700 billion to Wall Street and didn't even ask for a receipt. But for $14 billion, the Big 3 practically had to have a plan for how everyone with the word manager in their title was going to brush their teeth in the morning for the next 5 years.

And never mind that it was a bridge loan, and the government would be paid back in interest, unless the $700 billion for Wall Street, where we're HOPING to get money back at some point in the undefined future.

This was all about letting the Big 3 fail and busting the UAW for Republicans. Don't let anyone else tell you different.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

President Chimpy to the rescue? Could be. Under the whole "unitary executive" thingy, Der Monkey & Pauslon may just take some of that Wall Street bailout $$$ and give it to Det. without asking or even informing Congress until after the fact.

Why would he do this? 2 reasons. He thought he had a deal with Congressional Ds but then the Rs in the Senate scuttled it. And we all know how he responds to being told "no" - like a 4 year old who's LONG overdue for his nap.

And there's also the "legacy project". Forget about Iraq, torture memos, domestic spying, Katrina... Someone must have told him in words of 1 syllable or less that he's on the verge of being forever remembered as the one on whose watch the Big 3 collapsed.

So what we have here is infantile pettiness & mind-boggling vanity potentially working towards a constructive purpose. Now there's something you don't see every day.

Revel in it people, revel!

Oh, and the really nice twist is that he probably would have sat back and let them get away with crushing the unions - if they hadn't fallen over themselves to bail out the theiving Wall Street goons.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of unions, public employees in the state of Maryland are getting shafted as well. Furloughs, wage freezes and increased health care costs are what the state has planned for us. Its time for public employees to fight back. Check out the video link below for more information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H1sq_VumBM